According to Indeed, a competent sales engineer needs the same communication and technical skills as most of today’s top jobs:
- Complex problem-solving skills
- Self-confidence
- Communication skills
- Sales skills
- Analytical reasoning
Should you know your product like the back of your hand? Absolutely. Should you be able to tailor your communication style to fit your audience’s background? Of course. But the best sales engineers stand out when they offer more than just these skills.
At Saleo, we work with some of the most innovative and high-performing sales engineers across SaaS. From Clari to Salesloft, these sales engineering teams consistently win deals, elevate the buyer experience, and drive revenue.
What separates the “good enough” SE teams from the “best in class”? Contrary to popular belief, the answer isn’t luck or raw talent. Rather, it’s a set of intentional strategies, processes, and tools that help SEs execute at the highest level.
So, where should you invest your resources to most effectively turn your team into SE rockstars? Here’s our list of the key traits and skills found among the best-in-class sales engineering teams:
1. Personalization Expert: Personalizing Every Demo At Scale
Modern buyers expect demos that feel like they were built just for them. In response, best-in-class sales engineers are ditching the one-size-fits-all walkthroughs and delivering hyper-personalized demo environments tailored to each prospect’s use case, industry, and internal company lingo. When sales engineers at Clari “felt limited in what they could show prospects” during demos, they turned to Saleo to inject real-time, relevant data into their live product.
Live demo experience platforms let SEs quickly create personalized demo environments that look and feel like the customer’s world—real data, real workflows, real value. No more sandbox workarounds or last-minute mockups.
2. Collaborative: Aligning Early and Often With AEs
Elite SEs are strategic partners in the deal cycle. According to Justin McDonald, Co-Founder and CEO of Saleo, “The best teams prioritize tight alignment between SEs and AEs from day one.”
Instead of building silos, these teams collaborate to co-create discovery questions, shape demo narratives together, and use real-time feedback to iterate fast.
Handoffs are old news. Today, a successful sales demo demands the entire sales team work in lockstep from first meeting to final signature.
3. Fact Finding: Building Demos for Discovery, Not Just Delivery
Old-school demos were about showing features. Modern demos, however, are about uncovering pain points, driving urgency, and shaping the vision of the solution.
That’s why best-in-class SEs use their demos not only to present software, but to ask smart questions, validate understanding, and lead consultative conversations.
With this in mind, the best teams will adjust their demo flow live, swap in relevant data, and pivot on the fly as they unearth new questions, concerns, and possibilities.
4. Data-Driven: Measuring What Matters
Top-tier SE teams run on data. They’re constantly tracking and analyzing demo engagement, time-to-demo, and demo-to-close conversion rates. For these teams, success has less to do with “gut-feeling” and everything to do with checking those feelings against the data—even if it’s not what they hoped for or expected.
A data-driven mindset paired with targeted visibility into demo performance metrics helps teams optimize every demo experience, prove ROI, and turn gut instinct into measurable impact.
5. Life-Long Learner: Training Continuously, Not Just Onboarding
With increased data visibility comes an improved ability to grow in new, strategic ways.
Best-in-class sales engineering orgs learn from their successes and failures, and use those learnings for continued skills improvement. Training for these teams is an ongoing (and rewarding) investment. They run regular demo reviews, role plays, and peer feedback sessions; they learn from lost deals, internal wins, and competitor movement; and, when something isn’t working, they try a new approach.
Great SEs are always willing to drop their ego in order to sharpen the sword—and great leaders make space for that growth to happen.
6. Standardizing for Success: Reusing Strategies Without Sacrificing Creativity
Great sales engineers are creative problem solvers. But the best teams don’t try to reinvent the wheel with every demo. Instead, these SE teams build repeatable, customizable frameworks they can adjust for any audience in a matter of minutes.
Platforms that support demo templates, knowledge bases, and scalable demo systems empower new SEs to onboard faster and experienced SEs to stay in their zone of genius.
Says Kevin King, Director Solution Consulting at Movable Ink: “The ability to organize and duplicate previous demos allows us to place brands within sales regions, customize content, and deliver demos quickly without starting from scratch.”
For the Best Sales Engineers, the Demo Is the Sale
In today’s competitive market, the demo isn’t just a step in the sales process, it is the sales process. Delivering the perfect demo experience is the difference between a closed deal and a lost one. A well-equipped SE team can turn an uncertain prospect into a believing customer.
At Saleo, we’re proud to be the platform powering the most dynamic demo teams in SaaS. Whether you’re scaling a growing SE org or optimizing a mature team, we’re here to help you turn every demo into a win.
Ready to see what a best-in-class sales demo experience looks like?
